My Emergency Surgery on 12/30/12

Last Thursday night, around 8pm I started having abdominal pain. At first it was sharp twinges like gassiness, so I ignored it. But it kept getting worse and worse. Finally by 1:30am I crept my way into Chael's room, unable to stand up straight, barely able to walk, and woke him. We tried to have me take some tummy meds and lay back down... but again I could barely walk, he had to physically help me onto my bed, and I had to lay flat on my stomach with my face pressed into the sheets as I was unable to move any part of my body to include raising my head to look at my laptop without level 9 pain. No amount of staying still helped, any type of movement made it unbearably worse. I told him to take me to the ER. 10hrs, 3 shots of morphine, a CT scan and 2 X-rays later the military doctors decided I had a small partial blockage of my small intestine and that it was fine to send me home with some pain meds. That I'd be fine and should just do my already-scheduled routine bypass checkup in a few days. Considering each morphine shot worked for about half an hour and then the pain grew again to where I was having it worse and worse to literally writhing and shrieking on the hospital bed at times, I at this point gave the doctor the Crazy Eyes Look. He backed up a bit in his statements and then considered that maybe he should call my bypass surgeon to see if they wanted to see me and just do their own double-check on me. Sure enough, they wanted to and I was ambulanced to the civilian hospital. That partial blockage that the contrast during the CT scan had passed the narrow point and moved just fine through my intestines and I could go home with pain meds for according to the military doctors? Yeah, within 15 minutes of being in the civilian ER the surgeon was standing next to my bed telling me that they had reviewed those CT scans and the contrast HADN'T gone past the blockage point AT ALL and had, in fact, been BACKING UP into my old and new stomachs expanding and stretching them dangerously. I was immediately going into surgery, sign these forms. Within 30 minutes I was out cold and in surgery. I've never been treated so fast in an ER ever. This shit was serious. I woke later in recovery, really groggy, with a doctor sitting next to me talking to me as I tried to clear my head. Very attentive and trying to help me out. I immediately noticed the pain was gone. I wondered if they had me seriously doped, because all I felt was tenderness in my middle. Eventually I was taken to my main room where Chael met me. I laid there, slept on and off, talked to nurses and doctors that came in to check on me and see if I needed meds. I didn't, I only had discomfort at about the level of a 1-2. It was amazing to feel so much better. Eventually it became time where I knew I was going to crash for the night (about 8pmish) and Chael was dozing, too. So I told him to go home and be back around noon the next day. I was fine until around 2:30am when the pain started building, but only up to about a 5 or so. I called the nurse and she was there in about 3-5 minutes with Lortab. After that I got Lortab every few hours to keep it reduced to just achy. Throughout this trip there, the docs and nurses were awesome. I saw the doctors repeatedly. The nurses, too, and when I needed them between regular check-ins they were always there quickly. All were very friendly and focused on making sure I was alright. There was one odd/uncomfortable bit, though. The first time I had to get up to pee there were two nurses in my room. The one helped me get out of bed, had me stand still for a while as she steadied me (I was fine, but understood she was being careful and doing her job), then she walked me into the bathroom (again, good intentions), then turned me so my butt was to the toilet and started to lift my gown for me and help me sit down. This is way more personal than I needed or ever want to get with anyone. I gritted my teeth and dealt with it, though, thinking "ok, she's just trying to be very careful with me... this is super uncomfortable but I can deal with it...". Then she stepped away as though she was going to leave me to pee. -Except she didn't. She stood at the door of the bathroom, with the door wide open to the room and other nurse, and watched me pee. Waaaaaaay too personal and waaaayyyyy too much pressure for someone reeaaaaallly pee-shy after urinalysises in the Army. It felt just like that to me and it took me a very long time of concentrating VERY HARD to be able to unclench. Finally I did and I went to wipe... and she started walking toward me in a way that gave me the horrible impression she was going to help me wipe. I did it fast and went to stand before she could reach me to consider it. She then hands-on all helped me back to bed and in it. As said, I can understand her intentions, but holy god I never want to do that again. Anyways, sometime during the night one of the docs comes in while I'm awake (I slept off and on). This was my first chance to ask what was up with what they actually ended up doing inside me. Turns out I had a hernia in the back of my abdomen. My small intestine had gotten caught and that is what caused the blockage and pain. When they went in it turned out that my intestine had slipped out of the hole on its own and all they needed to do was sew up the tear and inspect my bowel for damage/rotting. Turns out as I'd gone in right away and they caught it at the civilian hospital so soon that there was no damage and they were able to just close me up. I spent a day in the hospital on meds and then up walking around slowly. With the Lortab my pain stayed very low. Again, just enough to know I'd had surgery, but not terrible at all. I did so well they let me go home that night instead of having me stay an extra day. I have been home a couple days now and am healing well. As long as I stay still and am gentle with myself I don't regularly need any pain medication. Now and then or when I am up and walking around I do and take it. I've 4 new holes in my stomach from the laparoscopy, the total holes they made were 5 but with one they actually went through an older lap scar so it's not a new mark. My tummy is getting polka dotted. It's good I heal well and scars fade so well on me. Give it a year and they'll be hard to see casually. I'm on movement and weight restrictions. No working out for me besides daily walks. I can eat whatever agrees with my insides, I've had no problems. So, I'm just spending time laying around healing. Interesting start to the New Year. But yeah, as with all the care I received when actually a soldier: Fuck Military Doctors.